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Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

April 2025

OFFICE OF THE P R O V O S T NEWSLETTER

IN THIS ISSUE

ACHIEVEMENTS MacEwan faculty receive top research honours, publications

MESSAGE FROM THE PROVOST & VICE PRESIDENT, ACADEMIC My former boss is an economist who studies gas prices. “Service stations are Potemkin villages,” I once needled him. “Car engines run on perpetual motion, and nothing actually comes out of the pump.” Now, if you have ever run out of petrol, or even if you have filled a jerry can, you know that’s not true. Our colleagues in Physics can rest easy in the knowledge that I am aware of thermodynamics. But I loved watching my old boss think about the sounds of a fill-up, trying to remember the last time he spilled more than a few drops. Though it was pure silliness, it gave us both a moment to look again at the familiar, to question the most basic things we knew to be true. Not everyone needs to be a skeptic, and I share a fear of rampant misinformation. But as someone who believes that a university is more a place to chart different approaches than take to the streets to implement a single one, I am worried about recent requests that job applicants should be screened on how they would help us, specifically and in detail, honour our place in O-day’min, as though any direction of our strategic vision has only one right answer. I almost never enter a room where I believe I will be met by people who vote like me, and so my default position is that I am not going to hear only things that reinforce my view of the world. My hope is for consensus, not unanimity, and I believe that my colleagues are people of good will.

Details HEADLINE DEPARTMENT SPOTLIGHT Into the Wild: The Department of Biological Sciences

FEATURED FACULTY Breakfast Club: Department of Mental Health Nursing and Community Wellness

HEADLINE Details EXPLAINER AI Disclosure Statements

COMING SOON Library’s Digital Wall

HEADLI NE Details

BUZZ Urban Beekeeping

HEADLI NE Details

EVENTS CALENDAR C2U Research Expo, end-of year shows, and more

Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

April 2025

We are entering a period where we will continue to grow while other institutions contract. And while we will be unlikely to hire at the same pace as we have through the first half of the decade, we will certainly still welcome enough new colleagues between now and 2030 to continue to reshape the academy. I hope we will not, behind discussions of “fit,” decide to seek only people who will reinforce disciplinary orthodoxies, whether those are old or new.

WHAT I’M READING Stone Yard Devotional, by Charlotte Wood. Riverhead Books, 2025.

Over the past twenty-five years, Australian Charlotte Wood has published seven novels, but this latest, nominated for a Booker Prize, is now making a splash upon its belated distribution throughout North America. The narrator, an atheist in late middle age, takes refuge from her unfulfilled urban life by moving to a convent near where she grew up. Wood’s eye for the commonplace brings alive a daily routine far from my own experience, and the three central occurrences of the plot— an almost-comical infestation of mice, the repatriation of the body of a nun who may have been murdered, and the arrival of a now-famous woman bullied by the narrator when they were in school—drives forward a story that is thoughtful but never ponderous.

How To Be Avant-Garde , by Morgan Falconer. Norton, 2025. When I was publishing on inter-war art a generation ago, Franco American critic George Steiner asked me, “Is there anything new to say?” (It was more encouraging than it sounds.) The lesson is that there is always a new audience to reach and a new tack to take, and Morgan Falconer uses the platform of a book with a major publisher to find antecedents to dada and surrealism, connect the iconoclastic impulse of that art to work in Russia and, most critically, trace its legacy in the post-war thought of Guy Debord. I went to school with a guy who read Debord and whose unfinished thesis, appropriately, was on “silence.” This book unlocks Debord’s legacy for a wider audience than my classmate certainly imagined.

April 2025

Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

ACHIEVEMENTS

Top MacEwan Research Honours Awarded

Recipients share thoughts on scholarship

Dr. Aiden Forth, Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities, MacEwan University’s Distinguished Research Award “ As a historian, I am convinced that we cannot understand the present without examining the past. My scholarship seeks to illuminate contemporary issues with historical context, from asymmetric warfare, food insecurity, and global pandemics (in my first book Barbed-Wire Imperialism ) to the detention of migrants, refugees, and political ‘enemies’ (in my second book, Camps: A Global History) . Generous support from the Distinguished Research Award will contribute to my new project, which examines the history of globalization and technological disruption in the nineteenth century. How did innovations in transportation and communication transform the way human beings interacted with the world and with each other? And what lessons might this history offer in today’s age of AI and social media?"

Dr. Sarah Copland, Associate Professor in the Department of English, 2025 MacEwan University Chancellor’s Research Chair “ I eagerly await the dedicated time to continue my ongoing research and to start a new project. My ongoing rhetorical narrative theory work focuses on author-audience relationships and the ethics and politics of narrative forms. One current project uses the data of social reading—Amazon and Goodreads reviews—to put lay reader responses in conversation with scholarly accounts of literary controversies and scandals. Another, a book co-authored with narrative theorists James Phelan (USA) and Henrik and Simona Zetterberg-Nielsen (Denmark), builds on developments in fictionality theory to center intentionally communicated invention as literary fiction’s core feature.”

Dr. Habib Rezanejad, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and students Madelaine Britt and Nicholas Abdilmasih published Pancreatic Ductal Cell Heterogeneity: Insights into the Potential for β Cell Regeneration in Diabetes in Stem Cell Reviews and Reports by Springer Nature. They reviewed the heterogeneity among pancreatic ductal cells and their potential as stem cells for beta cell regeneration in diabetes.

Dr. Brian Franczak, Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, 2025 MacEwan University Chancellor’s Research Chair “ I am developing a research program that trains undergraduate students to conduct modern statistical analysis. To be appointed a MacEwan University Chancellor’s Research Chair is a significant achievement because it recognizes the contributions and potential of my research program. Further, to share this designation with the other excellent researchers that have received this appointment is a great honour.”

PUBLICATION

April 2025

Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

DEPARTMENT SPOTLIGHT INTO THE WILD This spring and summer, the Department of Biological Sciences will head outside to collect and observe local wildlife. Here are some of the projects taking place in the field

ssociate Professor Dr. Kevin Judge and his students will place and monitor trap nests in the Wagner Natural Area to study solitary bees and wasps, which help with pollination and pest control. These artificial nests provide a safe place for the insects to nest, allowing researchers to monitor both the insects and their prey. The project will help inform conservation efforts for these important species. ssociate Professor Dr. Shannon Digweed will bring several honor and independent study students to various field locations. In Whitemud Ravine, they will focus on animal behavior, communication, and cognition by observing the way red squirrels communicate with each other and perceive and interact with their environment. They will also test whether squirrels can alter their foraging behavior using a detour apparatus. The same type of research will be conducted with Douglas squirrels in Richmond, B.C. At Rock Glacier in Kananaskis, Dr. Digweed and one of her honors students will also be studying pika vocal communication. They will make several trips to record pika sounds and play the sounds back to the animals to observe their responses. ssistant Professor Dr. David McFadyen and his students will venture to Wagner Natural Area, home to 16 of the 26 orchid species native to Alberta, many of which are endangered. They will focus on understanding the relationship between Alberta’s native orchids and the fungi in the soil that are essential for seed germination, specifically targeting the species of fungi required by the Sparrow’s Egg Lady’s Slipper and the Small Round leaved Orchid. Additionally, they will investigate the orchid genes that contribute to the plant-fungi relationship. This understanding is crucial for developing effective conservation strategies for these endangered orchids.

Alberta’s orchids are not as large and showy as those commonly found in greenhouses and floral shops, so careful observation is required to spot them.

Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

April 2025

Featured Faculty The Breakfast Club

Only a few blocks from campus, nursing students serve meals to those in need, learning valuable lessons about compassion and honouring

our place in O-day’min

Professor Shepherd-Finlin and her students prepare breakfast at The Rock

his semester, Nurse Educator Catherine Shepherd Finlin in the Department of Mental Health Nursing and Community Wellness took an inspiring approach to service learning: Her students step outside the typical clinical setting to serve breakfast to those in need at The Rock, a Lutheran organization located in the heart of the city. The program operates three mornings a week at 6:30 a.m., offering students the chance to engage with people in a way that extends beyond the confines of a hospital or clinic. Rather than providing medical care, they are focused on giving their time, compassion, and support to individuals who are facing various challenges in their lives. The Rock is a community-driven organization that provides free breakfast to those experiencing homelessness, addiction, or financial instability. For some, it’s a crucial place to get their first meal of the day; for others, it’s an opportunity to experience a moment of human connection and care.

Students are not acting in the capacity of healthcare providers during these sessions, but rather as community volunteers, helping to serve meals and engage with clients. Shepherd-Finlin says this approach allows students to develop a deeper understanding of the lives of people who may one day become their patients and to recognize the broader social determinants of health that impact their well-being. Students gain insight into factors that affect a person’s overall health—factors that might not be immediately visible in a hospital setting but are critical in delivering holistic care. “It’s important to know the community that you're working in: Who is living there, what their needs are, and which organizations are serving those people,”says Shepherd-Finlin. “As registered nurses or MacEwan as a whole, we can partner with these organizations to really help with the health of the population.”

Learn more about The Rock therockedm.ca

Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

April 2025

Explainer: AI Disclosures

A simple statement about AI use can open an important conversation about technology and academic integrity

hile AI tools are ubiquitous —from autocorrect features in word processors to recommendation systems in software—ambiguity still remains around what constitutes acceptable AI use in academic contexts. For instance, a student might unknowingly rely on AI when an email or document auto-completes a sentence. This grey area complicates the definition of academic integrity and emphasizes the need for clear communication between instructors and students on AI and its place in the classroom. One effective strategy emerging from this shift is the use of AI disclosure statements. These statements encourage students to disclose whether or not they have used AI in completing their assignments and to outline the extent to which it was used, including grammar checking, brainstorming, or generating content.

By setting this expectation, instructors not only foster transparency, but also start a critical conversation about AI’s place in academic work. “The all-or-nothing approach to AI is hard to enforce because AI is already integrated into many of the tools we use every day,” says Alison Bailey, Educational Developer in the Centre for Teaching and Learning. “It’s not about banning it, but about helping students and instructors recognize its presence and use in academic work.” Ultimately, AI disclosure statements help foster an open dialogue where students and instructors can explore its use together. This approach ensures that everyone can navigate the complexities of AI with transparency and shared understanding.

Example AI Disclosure

AI Can Help You, Too! On May 12, the Centre for Teaching and Learning presents AI Prompts for Course Design. Explore how AI tools can make the course design process more efficient and enhance course outcomes, assessments, content, teaching strategies, and overall alignment.

Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

April 2025

The Wall

Coming Soon

his month, John L. Haar Library will unveil its new Digital Wall, a splashy 4-foot-by-13.5-foot display where scholarly works, student research, and creative projects will come to life. With a lineup of exciting exhibits— including a MacEwan authors section and several upcoming displays of student work—it’s a vibrant way to showcase the exciting scholarship happening around campus.

"This innovative addition to the library will not only highlight the breadth of research and artistry on campus but also aims to foster engagement, collaboration, and inspiration among students, faculty, and visitors alike,”

says Robyn Hall, Interim Associate Dean and Scholarly Communications Librarian. Keep an eye the MacEwan Digital Exhibits Site for ways to contribute to the display.

Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

April 2025

Buzz

The Bees are Back

early a decade ago, Resident Urban Beekeeper Troy Donovan collaborated with the Office of Sustainability to bring four hives to the roof of Building 5, and bees officially took up residence at MacEwan. Since then, the project has flourished: In 2024 alone, the bees produced 244 pounds of honey. The harvest is sold each fall through MacEwan’s bookstore and makes its way into local creations like Alley Kat’s Griffins Beer, candles, and campus culinary projects. “People are always amazed at how much honey we collect from a rooftop,” Donovan says. “It’s a fun, surprising project—with a sweet reward.”

Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

April 2025

HIGHLIGHTS

In the fourth public lecture as part of the Chancellor Speaker Series, MacEwan's first Chancellor, Dr. Tony Fields hosted Dr. James Canton, a leading global futurist, in Paul Byrne Hall. Dr. Canton presented a thought-provoking lecture on the way AI will disrupt healthcare and remarks, and Provost Craig Monk emceed the event, facilitating a spirited audience question-and-answer session. The Chancellor Speaker Series supports the Chancellor’s Scholarship Series program, rewarding students for their academic achievement and providing financial resources to assist in continuing their education. Admission donations go directly to supporting this scholarship series for MacEwan students entering a degree program. Chancellor’s Speaker Series April 3, 2025 improve health on a global scale. President Annette Trimbee shared

Dr. James Canton speaks about AI and Healthcare to a large audience in Paul Byrne Hall.

Book of the Year Reading and Q&A March 21, 2025

On March 21, author Deborah Willis read a selection from her book Girlfriend on Mars, MacEwan’s 2024-2025 Book of the Year. Following the reading, current Writer in Residence, Jenna Butler, interviewed Willis before opening the floor to audience questions. The Book of the Year is a hallmark program at MacEwan; each year, the selected book is a staple in classrooms across programs and departments throughout the Fall and Winter terms.

Writer in Residence Jenna Butler (left) interviews Book of the Year author Deborah Willis.

Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

April 2025

APRIL 2025 S M T W T F S

Still Moves: Studio Arts BFA Grad Show

Relational Pedagogy

Slow Research Chat

Winter Term Final Exams

Student Research Day

Good Friday

Winter Term Final Exams

Big Time: Design Portfolio Show 2025 Opening Reception

Easter Monday

Share your stories with the faculty and staff of Academic Affairs. Do you have department updates, upcoming events, or know of any faculty achievements? Please share them with:

Erika Rietz | Communications Specialist Academic Affairs, Office of the Provost Email: rietze@macewan.ca

Exceptional Undergraduate Learning

April 2025

MAY 2025 S M T W T F S

Start of Spring/Summer Term

C2U Research Expo

Creating Impactful Research Profiles

Creating Connections

C2U Research Expo

President’s Medal Nominations Due

Victoria Day

Share your stories with the faculty and staff of Academic Affairs. Do you have department updates, upcoming events, or know of any faculty achievements? Please share them with:

Erika Rietz | Communications Specialist Academic Affairs, Office of the Provost Email: rietze@macewan.ca

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